


From Room to Room

by patster223



Category: Stellar Firma (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Canon typical abuse and alcoholism, Daemons are inherently allegorical, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Identity Issues, Spoilers through the end of S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223
Summary: David 7 is born with a daemon that has no name and no settled form. But heisborn with a daemon.His Dark Materials fusion.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 118





	From Room to Room

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I write...10k for a sci fi comedy improv podcast…
> 
> Spoilers through the end of season 2. Shout-out to stellarscripts.tumblr.com, they were so helpful to reference for this.

Even clones know what daemons are. It’s in their programming, David supposes. It must be, because when David emerges from his chute, covered in goo, he feels no surprise upon seeing the small newt alongside him. 

“Oh,” David says, blinking blearily at his daemon. “Hello.”

His daemon blinks blearily back. Before she can respond further, however, Trexel enters the room, bringing with him chaos and trough moon planets and more talk of  _ chutes _ , ugh. 

It isn’t until Trexel and his daemon--Zatara, her name is Zatara--leave that David realizes that  _ his  _ daemon doesn’t have a name. 

“Well, that must be a mistake,” he says aloud. “IMOGEN, what’s my daemon’s name?”

_ Clone daemons are not given official designations. Also, IMOGEN does _ not  _ make mistakes. Any implication otherwise will be reported to security.  _

“But…but it doesn’t make sense for him to have a name and not me,” David’s daemon pipes up. She crawls up David’s sleeve and onto his shoulder. “ _ Surely _ there must have been some kind of mista-”

Guns emerge from the wall, and David and his daemon squeal and scream and apologize in tandem until the gun walls retreat, and they can breathe a collective sigh of relief. 

“Okay, okay, no mistake!” David squeaks. “We’ll just...name her ourselves then, that’s fine. We can do that! How about….um….hrmm…”

“We don’t know any names, do we?” his daemon sighs.

“We know  _ some  _ names!” David protests. “Let’s see...there’s Trexel-”

“Ugh.”

“Zatara.”

“ _ Ugh _ .”

“Hartro-”

“No.” 

“Uh, well...I guess the only one left is IMOGEN.”

His daemon gives a considering flick of her tongue. “She’s a bit like our mum, right? So, it’s not that weird to name me after her.”

David and his daemon pause for a moment, waiting for the gun walls to confirm or deny how weird it would, in fact, be. After a moment, IMOGEN says:

_ IMOGEN name, licensing, and patent are property of Stellar Firma Ltd. Copyright infringement detected. Watch it, buster!  _

“A nickname, then,” David says hastily, glancing at the walls. “How about, uh...Genny?”

David’s daemon nods. “I like it.”

A pause. And then:

_ Not technically a violation of copyright. Copyright evasion detected. Security alerted.  _ Another pause, and then, more cheerily,  _ Welcome to Stellar Firma, David 7 and Genny! _

Genny grins at David, then shifts into a mouse and scurries into the neck of his onesie. 

***

It takes three days for Trexel to even notice that David  _ has  _ a daemon. 

At first, David thinks that the inattention is due to Genny’s small size. Clone daemons apparently only have a few preprogrammed animals they can shift into: mice and newts and so forth, nothing larger than a hand. Perhaps Genny is simply too small to be noticed. 

It takes only one day of working together for David to suss out that that is  _ not  _ the case. Trexel’s inattention is just him being... _ Trexel.  _

“Eight hours!” David screeches. “Me and Genny have been waiting here for  _ eight hours _ ! We’ve been doing this for three days; how do you not understand how this whole thing works at this point?”

“David,” Trexel says solemnly. “I don’t make it my business to understand anything. And nor should you! That way madness lies, David! Madness--not to mention being a gigantic  _ nerd _ .”

_ Nerds detected,  _ IMOGEN says happily.  _ Security ready to shove into lockers.  _

David sighs. “Okay, but that doesn’t change the fact that we only have twenty minutes left before the brief is due.”

“There’s always twenty minutes left before the brief is due,” Trexel says, waving David’s words away. Zatara nods from where she’s draped loosely around Trexel’s neck, her monkey’s tail drifting lazily behind her. 

“But there shouldn’t be,” Genny protests. She’s in her hedgehog form at the moment, her spines out in frustration. “Not if you were here on time!” 

Trexel continues talking--something about the Cosmic Lounge,  _ again _ \--but Zatara takes a moment to squint at Genny. 

Normally, Trexel’s daemon spends her time lying on top of his head, playing with his hair and only speaking up to sing along with him. But now, for the first time in the three days they’ve known each other, Zatara is standing up straight, eyes focused on David’s daemon with an uncharacteristic curiosity. 

“Have you always been there?” Zatara asks, speaking over Trexel. 

Genny huffs. “Have I---of course I’ve always been here! I’m David’s daemon!”

“No, no,” Zatara says dismissively. “Obviously you’re  _ there,  _ but you’re, like…  _ standing there.  _ And talking. You’re not in his pocket or whatever.”

“Why should I be in his pocket?” Genny says. “Maybe  _ you  _ should be in  _ Trexel’s  _ pocket!”

Zatara rolls her eyes as if Genny is being the ridiculous one. She pulls lightly on Trexel’s hair. “Trexel.”

Trexel doesn’t heed her any mind, continuing to ramble. His inattention apparently extends to his own daemon as well, and David winces. He’s only known his daemon for a few days, but he can’t imagine not being completely aware of her at all times. 

“ _ Trexel, _ ” Zatara says again, yanking harder on his hair.

“Oh, what, why,  _ who  _ is interrupting me? David? David, is that you--how  _ dare  _ you interrupt me, I will not--oh. It’s you,” Trexel says, blinking at Zatara. “What is it? I’m trying to explain to him why the Cosmic Lounge is-”

“I miss the Cosmic Lounge,” Zatara sighs. “It’s been a whole thirty minutes.”

“ _ Exactly,  _ that’s what I’m-”

“Was his daemon always a hedgehog?” Zatara says, evidently not caring about interrupting Trexel any more than he minds doing the same to her.

“ _ Whose _ daemon? Ugh, you know I can never remember daemons. Heck, I can barely remember where I am!”

“We’re in your office,” David sighs. “Where you  _ work _ .”

“ _ His _ daemon,” Zatara says, pointing at David even as she ignores his words. “Isn’t it supposed to be a mouse or something?”

“We’re right here, you know,” Genny huffs. Then, as if to prove a point, she shifts into a mouse, staring defiantly at Zatara.

It’s at that point, having been forced by Zatara to actually pay attention, that Trexel appears to finally catch up. He glances at Genny, then Zatara, and then David. 

“Ah,” Trexel says. “Well, that, David--that is just horrific.”

“Horrific?!”

“Horrific! Clone daemons don’t  _ shift, _ ” Trexel says. He chuckles at the thought as if he hadn’t seen Genny do just that only a moment ago. “Why would they need to? They’re entirely vestigial! Clone daemons are like...like that wart that some people-- _ some  _ people, David, I’m not saying me, stop listening to the rumors that it’s  _ me _ \--have on their right hand from when humans first went into space and grew sixth fingers for some reason, but then they thought, wait, that doesn’t make evolutionary sense, so right back in it went. Except some people-- _ not me, David _ \--still have a little nubbin there. That’s what clone daemons are like: a little nubbin.”

“Well, Genny’s not--that,” David says, exasperated. 

Zatara clambers off of Trexel’s shoulder and approaches Genny, though she seems careful not to get too close to her. She squints at Genny again, like...like she’s not quite sure if she trusts what her eyes are telling her. 

Genny squints back and then, with a huff of frustration, shifts into the largest shape she ever has: a monkey about the same size and shape as Zatara. But where Zatara’s fur is a rusted orange, Genny’s is a luminous silver, with a white-blue streak on her crown that matches David’s own streak in his hair. 

The fact that they still match, even when changing into a shape that wasn’t programmed for them, makes something in David feel warm and light. 

David shoots Trexel a smug smile. “How’s  _ that  _ for vestigial?”

Zatara murmurs something under her breath, and Trexel scowls.

“The  _ brief,  _ David,” Trexel says, and, for a moment, David wonders if his boss has been replaced by someone who actually cares about work. “Tell your daemon to stop copying me--as amazing and incredible as I am, I will  _ not  _ be imitated by a clone--and let’s, oh, make another planet or something. Personally, I’m feeling another trough moon. I am an  _ artist,  _ David, and this is my trough moon period…”

It takes every second of their remaining fifteen minutes to push Trexel away from ideas of trough moons and toward...monorails and animal life guns. Board, David is  _ definitely  _ getting recycled at the end of this week...

“Well, that was…terrible,” David sighs, as soon as he and Genny are alone in their room again. 

“Yeah,” Genny says, climbing onto David’s shoulder. She’s a lot heavier now that she’s a monkey, but the weight actually feels nice to David, feels grounding. “At least we got to freak out Zatara, though. Did you see her face when I copied her?”

“That’s the sort of thing that gets people recycled,” David points out. 

“Oh, Trexel will get us recycled no matter what we do.”

“Hrmm…” David runs a finger along the crown of Genny’ head. The fur there is short and a bit course, different from that of any other animal they’ve tried. “What Zatara she say to you? Before Trexel went all quiet. I didn’t even know that he could  _ be  _ quiet.”

Genny shrugs. “Just some name. ‘Perry’ or something.”

“We’re learning so many names now,” David muses. “You still like the one we’ve got? We could look through the briefs for another one if you want.”

“Nah. Genny suits me.”

With that, Genny jumps off him and uses her new range of motion to easily climb onto the IMOGEN terminal. David is quick to follow, and soon they’re spending the rest of the night researching different species of monkey. 

***

Having access to IMOGEN makes the world feel so much more open to them. Or, as open as it can be when David and Genny are trapped in their one room. Nonetheless, IMOGEN’s databank of animals gives Genny the ability to morph into all sorts of new creatures. Things like anteaters, and dogs, and space cats, and cosmic snakes, and something quite strange called a mongoose. 

“Oh, oh, do that one!” David says, pointing to a picture of something called a “bird.”

Genny studies the photo; screws her eyes shut; and shifts into something with downy feathers, large eyes, and a sharp beak. 

“ _ Ohhhh _ ,” David says, his voice warbling with excitement. “I think this might be a new favorite.”

Genny inspects her feathers and preens. “Look what  _ I  _ can do now.”

With that, Genny gives an experimental flap of her wings before stepping off of the IMOGEN terminal and--

And  _ flying.  _ It’s belabored at first, Genny struggling to find a proper rhythm to her flaps, and every now and then, she’ll plummet a few inches to the floor before righting herself. But, within a few moments, she’s able to hover proudly at eye level with David. 

David whoops in excitement and throws his arms in the air in triumph. Even if he’s not the one actually flying, he still feels Genny’s elation as his own. With every beat of Genny’s wings, David’s stomach swoops and his heart pounds even though she’s only flying a couple meters high. But even a couple meters feels like a marvel when they’ve spent their entire existence stuck on the ground. 

“Again!” David cries, gesturing for her to fly higher. “Come on, tell me what’s up there!”

Genny laughs at David and describes the ceiling with a dutiful tone that is no doubt intended to tease him for acting so excited about something so mundane. But her delighted chirps betray her own excitement at being off the ground. 

Yes, birds quickly become one of their favorite animals. For a short while, anyway.

“What is that...noise?” Hartro says, wrinkling her nose. 

David listens intently but only hears Trexel gagging on Hartro’s foot. It’s...hard to hear anything  _ else  _ when that happens, honestly.

“Do you mean Trexel?” David suggests. 

“No, it’s like this annoying...flapping sound,” Hartro says. “Trexel, have you somehow found a  _ new  _ way to irritate me during these meetings?”

“Arggshh,” Trexel manages.

“Ah,” David says. “I think that might just be Genny?”

Hartro looks confused for a moment before finally noticing the bird daemon hovering near David’s head. She rolls her eyes and turns her attention back to Trexel, shoving her foot further into his mouth. Her lynx daemon, for his part, sits more firmly on top of Zatara.

“See?” Hartro says. “This is what I’m talking about! You make lava planets that leave a bunch of orphans behind, you get drunk at work, and you make your clone have a weird little...bird daemon thing. No one else I supervise has these problems!”

Daivd wants to pipe up that no one  _ made  _ Genny be a bird. She’s a bird because it’s fun to flap around, and because her song is all the more lovely in this form, and because it’s nice not to touch the ground that’s sticky with clone slurry and whatever detritus and moisturizer Trexel leaves behind. 

But then Trexel gags again, and David’s words are swept away in the remainder of the review. It’s only afterward--when they finally have a weekend away from Trexel and his mouth noises, thank  _ Board _ \--that Hartro’s words fully register. 

“Why would it be a problem that I’m a bird?” Genny asks. 

“Maybe birds aren’t ‘vestigial’ enough,” David says dryly. He leans against the wall with a sigh. “Or maybe it’s too  _ fun  _ to be a bird. Ohh, Board forbid that the clone has a bit of fun! Only  _ Trexel  _ gets to have fun; only  _ Trexel  _ gets to go to the Cosmic Lounge; only  _ Trexel  _ gets to leave the room!-”

David’s words are interrupted by a heavy, scratching clunk that echoes throughout the room. He glances upward to find Genny hovering near the tube that holds the briefs. Genny drops a screw on David’s head--”Ow!”--and gets to work on the next one, grabbing it with her beak and twisting and flapping furiously--

Until that screw comes out too, and a panel from the tube’s exterior comes crashing to the floor. Only then does Genny fly back down, landing on top of the dislodged, metal panel and preening. 

“Maybe only Trexel can have fun,” she says shrewdly. “But only  _ birds  _ can find nicks in the brief tube.”

“ _ Genny _ ,” David says, gaping up at the tube. “Is that…”

“The brief for next Monday?” Genny flies up, back into the tube, and tugs out a piece of paper, and drops it, leaving it to flutter onto David’s head. “Sure is.”

David plucks the paper off his head and grins as he begins to read. Just a few sentences in, he can already feel a few ideas for a planet sparking in the back of his mind... 

“Well then,” David says, lifting his arm to make a perch for Genny and giving her head a scratch when she lands. “What do you say we get some real work done around here?”

***

After getting the tube open, David and Genny decide to abstain from being a bird when anyone else is around. After all, if they’re going to do this properly, they  _ can’t  _ risk arousing suspicion. The ability to fly seems like a small enough price to pay in order to take matters into their own hands. 

For a while, it even works. But then Trexel finds out they’ve been faking the briefs, and then the trial happens, and they’re transferred to sales, and--

It’s... _ weird,  _ being in sales. David is suddenly meeting new people--new people!--every day, each of them with their own, literally alien daemons that David hadn’t even  _ thought  _ to search for in IMOGEN’s database. 

It  _ should  _ be the perfect opportunity to experiment with a few new shapes. Heck, just the other day they met a daemon with scales and six legs that seemed like quite good fun. But…

But, like David said, it’s  _ weird _ being in sales. They were born literally a month ago! And now they’re suddenly in this new place with new, even  _ deadlier  _ rules, with no idea what those rules dictate when it comes to Genny. 

Theoretically, now that their brief subterfuge has failed, they can be whatever they want. But they’ve been flightless for so long that anything with wings feels...too untethered, too exposed. And anything larger than a mouse just feels  _ huge  _ at this point _ ,  _ liable to attract the wrong kind of attention from people like Standards at any moment.

“What does it matter?” David reminds them both, exasperated with their inability to just  _ try something _ . “We were already on trial--it’s not like laying low  _ worked _ .”

“Maybe we just need to ease into it,” Genny says. She’s currently a mouse again, shifting from paw to paw uncomfortably because--while they aren’t exactly sure what shape would be  _ better _ \--they’ve both decided that a mouse is  _ not  _ for them. “Try something simple.”

“Maybe a knife dog?” David suggests.

_ Knife Dog is the intellectual property of Stellar Firma. Copyright infringement detected  _ again.  _ Security alerted. Watch it, David 7.  _

“Of course,” David groans. “We don’t like our preprogrammed shapes, we don’t feel good about any  _ non _ -preprogrammed shapes, and we can’t even do the shapes that we just made up because they’re not our  _ intellectual property. _ ”

“Maybe we could just...borrow someone else’s shape?” Genny muses. “Just until we feel more comfortable. Someone who isn’t intellectual property. Like, maybe…”

Genny closes her eyes and shifts into their largest shape yet: a clouded leopard. In this form, she comes up to David’s knees, with dusky, swirling blotches and stripes creating a mesmerizing pattern on her fur coat. 

“Isn’t that...Tearana?” David asks. He reverently traces his finger along the negative space created by her spots. “Bathin’s daemon?”

“It’s a bit big,” Genny admits, shifting her new weight between her now much larger paws. “But...what could be safer than Bathin?”

_ Nothing could be safer than being wrapped up in Bathin’s strong arms,  _ IMOGEN agrees.  _ Mmm, Bathin.  _

David can’t disagree there. Knowing that this daemon already exists--and that it’s  _ Bathin’s! _ \--lifts an oppressive weight off of David’s chest. If they’re just copying someone else, then...then it’s not like  _ they’re  _ doing anything wrong by being this large. And it  _ does  _ feel like a step in the right direction, as far as Genny’s shape goes. 

Or, it feels like a step in the right direction before Trexel says his piece about it. Because of  _ course  _ he has something to say about it. 

“Is that...Is that  _ Bathin’s  _ daemon, David?” Trexel says, glancing at Genny with distaste. 

“Y-yes?”

“Hmm,” Trexel says, frowning. “You got the spots a bit wrong there, didn’t you? And she’s still got her weird little blue hair thing. Ah well--the pattern on Bathin’s daemon sucks anyway! Just like  _ Bathin  _ sucks. How come your daemon never tries to copy Zatara, hmm? I’m beginning to feel slighted, David.”

“Oh,  _ you  _ feel slighted!” David huffs. “Well, Trexel, speaking of feeling slighted, my daemon does have a  _ name _ . Not that you would remember it…”

“Ugh, this again. ‘I’m David 7, and I want  _ rights  _ and for people to remember my  _ daemon’s name _ , and...whatever else it is that you clones want. Goo? Clones like goo, right?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t  _ mind  _ some goo right now--wait, no!” David says, shaking his head. “The  _ point  _ is that Bathin’s daemon is great. She’s the perfect choice for us.”

“David, you’ve never even  _ met  _ Bathin and his daemon. If you  _ did,  _ you know that they’re just... _ ugh. _ ”

“That they’re strong yet gentle, and protective but not overly so?” David sighs wistfully. “Like, they’ll protect you, but they still want you to have your independence and nurture your own goals, you know? I bet they’re such good listeners too…”

Trexel picks up Zatara by the scruff of her neck and gestures between them both. “ _ We’re  _ good listeners and--whatever else it was you just said. I sort of lost track.”

“Mmmhm.”

“David,” Trexel says grandly. “Daemons are about respectability. You think that  _ my  _ parents would have let me get away with having a subpar daemon when we settled? No! Even when I cried,  _ WHY, why can’t we be a little delicate butterfly,  _ they said, ‘nope, get that thing out of here, and by ‘thing,’ we do mean our son.’” Trexel waves Zatara around again. “ _ So,  _ you know it’s true when I say that Zatara is the perfect daemon and should be the obvious object of  _ your  _ daemon’s attention. Monkeys are one of the  _ most  _ respectable daemons there are, David!”

“If only you were a respectable  _ person _ ,” David mutters.

“What do you care if we copy you or Bathin?” Genny says, her tail wagging idly behind her. She studies Zatara with interest. “The last time I was a monkey, you thought it was ‘horrific.’”

Trexel makes a face like he always does when Genny directly addresses him, and gestures to Zatara to speak. 

“I mean, it was,” Zatara says, clambering out of Trexel’s grasp and onto his head, though she struggles to balance on top of his wig. “Don’t get us wrong, we  _ are  _ torn between the need for our greatness to be recognized by literally anyone--even  _ you _ \--and the absolute tragedy that would be comparing ourselves to a clone-”

“ _ Thanks- _ ”

“But we like you, so you should be more like us,” Zatara says, slipping a bit on Trexel’s hair before righting herself. “That’s why Trexel is taking you through the Trexel Geistman Ten Steps to Ultimate Sales Domination Plan.”

_ Narcissism levels off the charts. Chart-smashing only allowed in regards to profit margins. Security alerted,  _ IMOGEN says. 

Genny rolls her eyes and, after a moment’s consideration, obligingly shifts into a monkey. Despite ostensibly being the same species now, Genny and Zatara still look almost nothing alike. In fact, now that they’ve moved to sales, the difference between them seems even more pronounced. Now, Genny’s fur is sleeker, shinier due to sleeping in a comfortable pod rather than on the counter of a bar; her eyes are brighter than Zatara’s, not clouded from alcohol; and her teeth are...definitely a bit sharper, though David isn’t quite sure why that would be. 

“Nope!” Trexel says, clapping his hands together. Zatara, for her part, cringes away and goes back to hiding in Trexel’s hair. “Still horrific!”

“Of course it is,” David mutters.

“You know what, we tried it and it didn’t work. You’re just a creepy little clone, David, and we must all try to accept that. Well, not really, because nobody  _ has  _ to accept a clone--I mean, can you imagine?”

“Well-“

“ _ But _ maybe we’d have an easier time of it if you stopped copying other people’s daemon’s—immensely unsettling, David! Immensely unsettling.”

“But what else am I supposed to do-”

“Don’t care! David, I know you’re a clone and therefore the entire idea of originality is unthinkable for you, but, you know, maybe give that a go. Be your own person. Again, not actually possible because you are a clone. But if you do manage it, be sure not to be  _ too  _ original, David, because, like I said, I will  _ not  _ be compared to you!”

“You’ve essentially given me no options then,” David says dryly.

“Again,  _ do not care!  _ Now, back to working on the client brief, which--while tangibly horrific in that we could be murdered by the client at any moment--doesn’t make me feel strange and small like looking at your daemon does.”

David also feels strange and small in that moment. Even once Genny shifts back into a leopard, his stomach churns with a hot, rancid feeling that he cannot identify. Her patterns, once beautiful to him, now feel...too random, too haphazard, too... _ much  _ to look at. 

“What’s wrong?” Genny murmurs to him, once Trexel leaves and they’re safe in their pod again. She lies on top of him, her weight heavy and comforting on his chest. “You aren’t listening to Trexel, are you?”

“I never listen to Trexel,” David says. After a moment of Genny’s wide, bright eyes staring at him, he sighs. “It’s just...what if he’s right?”

_ That is incredibly unlikely!  _ IMOGEN says. 

“What do you know?” David says irritably. “ _ You’re  _ not a clone, and  _ you  _ don’t have a... _ weird clone daemon  _ to worry about!  _ You  _ are your _ own _ person.  _ We  _ only know how to copy other people!”

_ Clone has  _ not  _ been properly internalizing cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. Session frequency increase: recommended.  _

“Great. Can’t even do therapy right,” David says before pushing his face into his pillow. 

“David…” Genny says, slipping off of him as he moves. She adjusts herself, as if unsure where to place her weight upon the bed. “I thought we were happy copying Bathin…”

“I was! At least...I thought I was,” David mumbles into the pillow. “But then Trexel made me feel all... _ urgh  _ about it. Anyway, it’s not like we  _ actually  _ look anything like Bathin.”

“I was trying my best,” Genny murmurs.

“I know that,” David says. “But we’re just... _ not  _ him. We’re not even good at being  _ copies _ .  _ And yet _ , according to Trexel, we’re also  _ inherently unoriginal.  _ So there’s apparently  _ nothing _ we can do that makes any sense at all, so--so why even bother, right?”

“But...what am  _ I  _ supposed to do then?”

David doesn’t _know._ It feels like they’ve tried almost everything at this point. For over a month, they’ve been lying, hiding, and twisting themselves into whatever shape could _maybe_ save them from being recycled that day. Bird, mouse, leopard, monkey--the shape itself had never mattered before, not so long as it kept them alive, or unnoticed, or distracted from the fact that soon they _wouldn’t_ be alive; but now that they _finally_ have the chance to try something different, they can’t even do _that_ right-

“David, breathe,” Genny says. She moves with certainty now, planting her weight more firmly on his chest and nosing at his neck, forcing his head up from the pillow. David instantly complies, clinging to her soft fur and gasping in the air that suddenly comes so much more easily now that he’s not breathing in cotton. 

“We’re just a copy,” David wheezes out. “I’m just a copy of a clone, and you’re just a copy of that clone’s daemon, and we just copy other people’s daemons, and--and--and one day we’ll just get recycled, and then it will be David 8’s turn, and it will happen all over again.”

Genny gives a considering pause before moving away from him. David almost gives a whine--he  _ needs  _ her, can’t she see that?--but it turns out that she’s only readjusting herself so that her head rests underneath David’s hand.

David looks down, slowly curls his fingers, and watches as they brush against that tuft of blue-white fur on the crown of her head. That spot of color that never seems to go away, no matter what her shape. 

“I don’t care that we’re copies,” Genny says firmly. “I don’t even care if we’re bad copies. No one else on Stellar Firma has this.”

David half-expects IMOGEN to pipe up and correct her, but--she doesn’t. That, combined with the tickly softness of Genny’s fur beneath his fingers, is what helps David finally get his breathing back to a manageable rhythm. 

“We’ll find our shape, David,” Genny promises, even though they have no way of knowing if clone daemons even  _ can  _ settle. But, again, IMOGEN doesn’t correct her. So David lets himself believe that promise. 

***

After that day, David and Genny begin experimenting with different forms in earnest, clients and Trexel be damned. 

And it is  _ definitely  _ to the distaste of their clients. Apparently, clone daemons’ preprogrammed forms are tiny and non-threatening for a reason _.  _ Heads are quirk to turn if David walks into a client meeting with anything larger than a space cat. Granted, most of the looks are dismissive, like Hartro’s whenever she sees David’s daemon, but some of them are downright  _ alarmed.  _

“What  _ is  _ that?” Ethel Unction Yeems says, gesturing at Genny.

David resists the urge to roll his eyes. At this point in his sales career, he’s used to people referring to Genny and him as  _ that  _ rather than  _ who. _

“She’s an aardvark,” he says dutifully. “They’re a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal from old Earth.”

A perfectly average animal, in David’s mind. But Ethel nonetheless looks  _ scandalized _ . Though, that could just be the fact that David is even addressing her at all.

Trexel is quick to jump in, dumping a bucket of mud on the ground and saying, “Who  _ cares  _ what she is, Madame? We have more important things to talk about--like this game of gravity ball we’re about to play!”

Gravity ball, as it turns out, is _ exceedingly _ dangerous. Though, at this point, David expects most things at Stellar Firma to be exceedingly dangerous. They maybe end up selling a planet to Ethel during the game? Difficult to tell with all the screaming. 

“Nicely done, David,” Trexel says, dusting off his onesie. “We definitely nailed that.”

David raises an eyebrow. He’s used to Trexel praising himself, but the  _ we  _ is certainly new. Normally, this is where they would go their separate ways, but with the sheer amount of risk involved in navigating the muddy aftermath of gravity ball, David is--for better or worse--forced into Trexel’s company for a few minutes longer as they carefully traverse the floor. 

Trexel strokes his beard thoughtfully, absolutely covering it in mud in the process. “You know, David--as much as Ethel bores the hell out of me, she was right on the money about Genny.”

Genny’s ears droop, and David grits his teeth. “What, about being disgusted by a clone daemon?”

Trexel waves David’s words away with his usual impatience, though the motion nearly topples him back into the mud. 

“Too many  _ a’s _ , David,” Trexel insists. “Any animal with two consecutive a’s in the name is simply unnatural. I know you can do better.”

“You...you do?” David asks.

“I do what?”

“Well, it just...It almost sounded like you believed in me.”

“David,” Trexel says gravely. “I believe in  _ nothing.  _ I do not even fully believe that you are not just a drunken hallucination. Wouldn’t be the first time, David! Wouldn’t be the first time. But, just in case you aren’t a hallucination, here is my advice to you: do better. Just like  _ I  _ am about to be doing better, because I will be in the Astral Bar, actively drinking. To be clear, David, I’m talking about an aesthetic and moral betterment for you, but mine is definitely more of a hedonistic, emotional sort of better.”

“To the vents!” Zatara says, scrambling forward as her human stumbles after her through the mud. 

“Huh,” Genny says, once the scuffling and grunting of their... _ vent noises  _ fade into the distance. “Was that them trying to be...encouraging? Maybe they feel bad about the way they’ve been treating us...”

_ Do you really think that’s likely?  _ IMOGEN says.

“Probably not,” David says, dragging his hands across his face. Then he grimaces, because he’s just covered himself with mud, hasn’t he? Ugh, it will take ages to separate it from his usual slime…

“Our standards for them are too low,” Genny sighs. 

_ And yet, most of the time they still manage to sink beneath them,  _ IMOGEN says. 

David gives a sigh to match Genny’s. “Is it sad that, even after everything he’s done to us, he might be the nicest person we know?”

_ That is the most depressing thing that  _ anyone  _ has ever said!  _

Later that night, David takes out their list of potential daemons and crosses off aardvark. Not because of Trexel, not because of Ethel, just... _ because,  _ okay? It didn’t fit, just like no other animals have fit whenever they’ve gone into client meetings, but--

It’ll be fine. They’ll find  _ something.  _

***

David has 23.75 hours of the day where he’s mainly just thinking. He  _ tries  _ not to think for that whole time, of course, distracting himself with plans and crafts and research. But 23.75 hours a day is a lot of time, so David ends up spending a good amount of it thinking. 

“Stop that,” Genny says, batting his nose with a paw. “You’re getting morose again.”

“I’m perfectly entitled to feeling morose,” David says archly. 

_ Clones are not entitled to  _ anything _ ,  _ IMOGEN supplies.

“See?” David says smugly. “A reason to feel remorse right there.”

Genny rolls her eyes and returns to kneading her paws in David’s onesie, and David returns to thinking. 

He’s thinking about people, as is often the case since he was transferred to sales. David meets a lot of people these days. Before, he’d only ever seen Trexel and Hartro, and even then, it was only for a couple hours a week. But now that he’s in sales, he meets new people  _ every day,  _ each of them with new names and stories and daemons. 

“But I still feel lonely,” David murmurs. “Why is that?”

Genny yawns and continues her kneading. She’s decided to be a leopard again today. They don’t do much copying other people’s daemons anymore, but, well. It’s been a tough week and they’ve been thinking a lot about Bathin lately. Sue them. 

“Just give it a half hour,” Genny says. “Then it will be 4:30 and Trexel might decide to show up.”

“Ergh,” David says, scrunching up his face. “I’d almost rather be lonely.”

“I could be a monkey again and freak out Zatara.”

“Thanks, but no. I’m not keen on another lecture.” David sighs. “How can I be lonely? I meet people every  _ day _ .”

Genny stops her kneading and flops down onto David’s chest. She lets out a quiet sigh. 

“You might get to meet people,” she says quietly. “But I don’t.”

David thinks back to their client meetings and supposes that that’s true in its own way. Clients may not care about David, but he does get to  _ speak  _ with them. Sometimes they even look at him and acknowledge his existence! 

But a client’s daemon has never once looked at Genny.

Back when they did their initial daemon research on IMOGEN, David recalls a lot of the articles talking about daemon-to-daemon interaction. At the time, it had--like most things--sounded exciting but completely alien to the newly-born clone. 

_ Daemons will often interact with each other in tandem with their counterparts interacting,  _ the articles had said.  _ Daemons’ role in communication is often to track other daemons’ moods in order to give their counterparts an idea of what they are feeling. This is thought to be a social instinct- _

Blah blah blah. As usual, none of it ended up applying to David, because no daemon they’ve met has ever given a toss about Genny. At this point, he’s not sure if they would know what to  _ do _ if a daemon other than Zatara tried to talk to them. For Board’s sake, Genny isn’t even  _ settled _ \--hasn’t had the luxury, with everything they’ve needed to do and be. She’s a different shape every day, sometimes every hour depending on their mood. 

How any daemon would be able to read her at all is beyond David. 

David runs his fingers through Genny’s thick fur. Unbidden, another line from their daemon research comes to mind, making his face flush hot.

_ Touching another person’s daemon is a taboo, incredibly intimate act- _

Why is he bothering to think about that? It’s not like he can even imagine it. David can’t even imagine another  _ daemon  _ touching Genny, let alone that daemon’s  _ person _ .

David closes his eyes. He traces Genny’s fur again, more hesitantly this time. What...What  _ would  _ it be like if he were Bathin, touching Genny--or if he himself were touching Bathin’s daemon? His fingers stutter in doubt, or maybe embarrassment, his skin growing even hotter at the thought of that fur belonging to someone else. 

It would be nice, right? Someone with no ill intent deciding to reach out and touch a part of your soul. That person would be able to  _ see  _ David, see that he isn’t just a clone--or, that he is, but that that’s okay _.  _ If someone were just willing to touch Genny instead of  _ ignoring  _ her, or staring at her blankly, or wondering why she’s a bird or a leopard or an aardvark or whatever other shape she’s trying because she just can’t seem to  _ settle-- _

If they could push  _ past  _ all of that and just touch Genny, then maybe they would finally see  _ David.  _ They would realize that David is a  _ person,  _ because you wouldn’t be able to touch the daemon of a  _ person  _ without feeling something, right?

And it  _ would  _ feel like something. Right?

_ More moroseness detected. Security alerted.  _

David sighs, and Genny shifts into a large dog--sans knife--that curls up in his lap. 

Like he said. Try as he might, David cannot imagine it. 

  
  


***

For all that David is sure that he is a person, he still sometimes feels shocked when he acts like one. David is supposedly entirely preprogrammed, after all. He’s supposed to be a fixed point: the 7th in a line of identical clones. 

And yet, every day, David finds himself doing and saying things that surprise him, surprise the people around him. He keeps...changing. 

He doesn’t think that anyone else would notice the change--it’s not dramatic or anything like that. He’s still a clone boy with slimy skin and a streak of white-blue in his hair. He still likes crafts and Bathin; he still hates socks and Trexel. It’s not a metamorphosis. David is just...not the same person as he was back in the design department. 

Again, he shouldn’t be surprised. David is a  _ person,  _ and  _ people  _ change. He just…

He just sort of thought that change would usually be for the better. That’s what IMOGEN’s therapy sessions had always suggested. 

Instead, David learns that he’s changed because of Stefan the Mantis Shrimp. Stupid Stefan the Mantis Shrimp and his stupid Hidden Colors of the Universe, revealing yet another aspect of the world that David had never even  _ thought _ to long for, but now does. Just one more person thrusting something beautiful in David’s face only to then slap him with it. 

It all just makes David see red. But  _ only  _ red, of course, because  _ he  _ only gets to see in three wavelengths of light, and even if he  _ could _ see more, it’s not like it would  _ matter,  _ because  _ he  _ can’t leave this dull, grey room anyway, so the Hidden Colors of the Universe would be completely wasted on him, so what’s even the damn  _ point _ !

“I want Stefan’s  _ x _ -ray vision!” Trexel chimes in. “I want x- _ rays _ !”

David wants too. Suddenly, he wants  _ everything,  _ as if a leaking dam inside of him had suddenly cracked and brought forth all the longing and all the desire he hadn’t even known himself to be capable of _.  _ He should surely be crushed beneath the thrashing wave of want inside him, but for some reason, he remains standing. 

Before David can even really think about it, he finds himself saying, “So, let’s find out Stefan’s weakness so we can kill them and take their eye--No wait. Hang on a minute.”

Trexel immediately begins admonishing--yet also praising?--David for the violent impulse. Which is fine by David, because his head is beginning to swim suddenly and he’s not quite sure how to respond. He opens his mouth and then shuts it again, the creak of his jaw suddenly too loud in his mind. He--he isn’t like this. David isn’t supposed to  _ be _ like this. 

There’s a weight against his feet, and he looks down. There, Genny sits, her ears drooped, hovering anxiously in front of him as a serval, her teeth wickedly sharp as she whines. 

Trexel doesn’t seem to notice--as usual--and without David fully present to keep him on track, he begins going on one of his usual tangents about someone.  _ Percy,  _ David hears the name Percy. 

Later, David will recognize this moment--these words, these feelings, this  _ want _ \--as a turning point: for who he is, for what Genny is, for what he has to do next. He’ll wonder if he would’ve done something differently if he’d known the full weight of what was about to happen. 

_ I don’t think I would,  _ he’ll think. Because, after everything that he’s been through, he thinks that he would rather consume all of Stellar Firma in its ugliness and callousness and neglect than go another day being fed lies. 

But, in that moment, it’s not as if David really has a choice in the matter. As if  _ anything  _ could stop Trexel once he starts spewing out a story. 

“I suppose you’d call them a, a clone,” Trexel says haltingly. “The boy meets a clone and that clone becomes his friend.”

Genny nips harshly at David’s leg, and David comes back to himself, suddenly begins hearing Trexel’s words again. 

“Wait,” David says. “Trexel, wait.”

“And then one time, one time…” Trexel says, as if David hasn’t spoken. “The boy’s parents come home early, and they see him talking and laughing with a clone. His  _ daemon  _ is talking with the clone’s daemon, and they’re copying each other’s shapes, and--and that’s not  _ right _ .”

“IMOGEN, stop the roleplay,” David says. Genny is whining again, biting at his onesie. Board, Board, Board, David does  _ not  _ want to hear this; he does  _ not  _ want to know what new, horrible things he will feel and say if he hears the end of this story. 

“That is below the station of a Geistman!” Trexel yells. “Get his daemon away from that  _ thing _ !”

“IMOGEN,  _ stop the roleplay! _ ”

“Take the clone away and fix it! Take them away and stick the boy in school!”

David’s hands shake. They shake so hard that the brief nearly falls to the floor. Genny twines between his legs, whining again, shifting into a larger shape that David can’t quite identify out of the corner of his eye. 

“You had a clone when you were younger,” David eventually manages. 

“Yes,” Trexel says quietly. 

“And it got taken away?”

A nod. Zatara crouches on top of Trexel’s feet, hiding her face in her hands. 

“And...recycled?”

“No.”

“No? David says, frowning. “Then, wait, why are you so sad about it? If the clone is alive, then why is this…Why is this a whole thing we’re doing?”

“As if there aren’t worse things than being recycled, David?” Trexel snorts. He roughly wipes the tears from his eyes. “People get recycled every day! Not a Tuesday unless somebody’s getting recycled. But clones aren’t cheap, you know, and my parents thought, ‘well, why don’t we just try to fix it? Get a proper return on our investment…’” Trexel sighs and looks down at Zatara. He reaches out like he’s thinking about touching her, but, after a moment, his hands settle at his sides again. “I came back home during a school holiday, and Percy was there again, just like always--except, well. His daemon...wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what?” David asks, confused. Genny is nosing at his knees, whimpering like she already knows the answer. 

“Wasn’t  _ there _ ,” Trexel says. “And Percy was different--just a shell of a clone. But who wouldn’t be after that, I suppose.”

“Oh,” David breathes, suddenly needing to put his hands on his knees for balance. He reaches for the scruff of Genny’s neck, needing to touch her, to make sure that she’s  _ there.  _ “Oh Board.”

Most of the research that David and Genny first did on IMOGEN were just silly, idle searches: distractions from their impending recycling. They would search for new shapes for Genny to take or look up far they could be apart from one another before their bond forced them back into the same space. 

They stopped researching the latter shortly after they discovered the words  _ severed.  _ Even before David knew exactly what the word meant, it left a bad taste in his mouth: one that should have served as a warning. But David was used to warnings looking like security alerts and gun walls, and hadn’t yet known what to do with a feeling so subtle. So, at the time, he ignored it and asked IMOGEN what the word  _ severed  _ means. 

To this day, David  _ really  _ wishes he didn’t know what that word means. 

“They severed Percy…” David whispers. “They took his daemon away from him, completely destroyed the bond between them...Board, how did he even  _ survive _ ? Where did they even put his daemon afterward?”

“David, stop it,” Trexel interjects. “This is nauseating to think about.”

“Oh, is it?” David snaps. “I’m  _ so  _ sorry that it hurts to think about a clone--which  _ I am,  _ by the way--being  _ severed _ ! Being horribly ripped apart from a part of his  _ soul  _ until there was nothing left of him! Until he was just a husk!”

“Well, thinking about it didn’t help Percy, did it?” Trexel says waspishly. “Doesn’t matter anyway; it was my parents decision. He wasn’t ‘up to standards.’”

David feels a horrible wave wash over him again, just like the one with Stefan. But this time it’s not _want_ that’s threatening to drown David. It’s _fury._

Then again, at this point, David isn’t sure how different those two things are for him. If it’s even possible for him to feel them separately anymore. 

Genny growls and plants her feet in front of David. Now that she’s stepping out in front of him, hovering protectively, he can see that she’s taken the shape of a huge, silver lion with a mouth pulled into a fanged snarl. 

“ _ We’re  _ not up to standards,” Genny growls. “And yet, even with everything that happened to Percy, you still  _ act the way you do _ ? Zatara, how could you treat us like this?”

“It doesn’t hurt if we just ignore it,” Zatara mumbles, pulling at Trexel’s shoelaces. “It doesn’t hurt that way.”

“Right,” David scoffs. “Of course. So, let me just get this straight. Your parents took away your childhood friend, and you’ve decided to take it out on every single other clone you’ve ever met. Despite the fact that we get  _ severed  _ when you do this!”

“Not severed!” Trexel says hastily, maybe the most uncomfortable that David has ever seen him. “Stellar Firma doesn’t usually take such extreme measures.”

“Not because they’re not capable of it,” David seethes. 

“Of  _ course _ they’re capable of it,” Trexel says, exasperated. “It’s just not worth the  _ trouble.  _ Cheaper to just recycle things, really.”

“And  _ people _ .”

“And people, yes! So, really, there’s no need to be so dramatic-”

“Oh, I’m being dramatic, am I?” David shrieks. “Because being recycled is  _ so  _ much better than being severed!”

“Of  _ course  _ it’s better--you should really be thanking me, if you think about it-”

“No!” David says, pointing a finger at Trexel. “Don’t try to twist your way out of this! Severing, recycling--it’s all just murder! You can tell yourself that one is better than the other, but it’s  _ not,  _ Trexel. You’re not any better than your parents!”

“Oh, is that what you think?”

“Yes!”

“Well, fine!”

“Good!”

“I’m Trexel Geistman.”

“And I’m David 7. And  _ this, _ ” David says, gesturing to the still-snarling lion at his feet, “is Genny. What’s your point?”

Whatever point Trexel had been about to make seems to sputter out as soon as he glances at Genny and is reminded--as if he’d already forgotten,  _ again _ \--that David has a daemon, and that that daemon has a name, and that that may or may not be evidential proof of David’s personhood. 

Before either of them can say anything more about it, however, there’s knocking on their door, and it’s time to present their sob story to Stefan the Mantis Shrimp. It won’t take much acting on Trexel’s part. Zatara is still trembling and sniffling where she rests at his feet. 

David has never been one for acting himself. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed about him. When they enter the client room, Genny is still growling. 

***

After that, Genny’s shapes find a consistency that make David’s heart sink. They’re all things with claws and teeth and enough mass to plant in front of David at a moment’s notice. Now, Genny favors her clouded leopard form not just because it’s Bathin’s daemon, but because clouded leopards have the largest canines in proportion to their size compared to any other Earth animal. 

David’s heart sinks when IMOGEN tells him that particular fact.  _ Of course  _ even their comfort animal has been ruined by all this. 

“D-do we want to try a squirrel today, maybe?” David suggests. He looks down at the ground, playing with the hem of his sleeve. “It’s just, we’re only one day away from our next performance review, and I don’t think Hartro will like it if the client is, erm, afraid of us again?”

Genny is currently prowling the room as a honey badger, and her faltering steps only confirm what David really already knows. Has known ever since that wave of  _ want  _ and  _ anger  _ crashed through them. 

“I...I don’t know if I know how to be something that small anymore,” Genny admits. 

Even though it’s the exact answer he expects, David still finds himself throwing his hands up in exasperation. “What do you  _ mean  _ you don’t know how to be small? You  _ know  _ how clients will look at us if we show up like this.”

“Of course I do-”

“Hartro is only one bad review away from recycling us-”

“I know that-”

“-And who even  _ knows  _ what Standards is planning for us, and Trexel is-- _ Trexel _ ! Argh! Why can’t we just be a stupid worm or whatever else it is that will get them to just  _ leave us alone!” _

“You’re the one who wanted us to find a shape that we like!” Genny snaps. “Well,  _ this is it, David.  _ Face it--you’re just a slimy clone boy with a vicious clone daemon, because that’s all anyone has ever seen in you and it’s all that they ever  _ will see _ !”

David gives an inarticulate shriek, kicking his pod and shrieking again when the action makes a dent in one of the panels. Chest heaving, he glares down at the now-broken pod, and--

And crumbles. Board, Genny is right. As if he can scold her for her claws when he’s acting the exact same. 

“We’re so  _ angry _ ,” David breathes, collapsing onto his bed. “We used to like being butterflies and birds and, and then...the  _ trial  _ and  _ Percy  _ and  _ ohh!  _ Stupid Trexel and stupid Hartro and stupi--and  _ Stellar Firma  _ h-have ruined us just like they ruin  _ everything _ !”

In the ensuing silence, David suddenly realizes that he’s in the bed alone. Though, the sensation is so foreign that he has to pat the space next to him just to be sure. Normally, Genny is so quick to join him that he barely registers it as a separate action from his own, but--

But now she’s at the opposite side of the room, trembling, and David’s bed feels too big and the sheets feel too cool against his skin. 

“I’m sorry, David,” Genny says quietly. 

“No, I--please come back,” David says, reaching out to her. “I’m. I’m so sorry.”

Genny bounds to David’s side without hesitation, burying her face in his chest as he shoves his hands into her fur and clutches her close. 

“I didn’t mean it,” David mumbles into her fur. “I’m sorry. I just--I’m just sick of this. I’m sick of wondering if this is  _ all  _ we are now. I feel so...empty,” David sighs. “But also so full, but, like, in a bad way. Like they took all the good parts out when they made me, and now all that’s left of me is the horrible things they’ve done to us.”

“There’s so much more to you than that,” Genny says. She licks at his face, and he snorts as her saliva mixes with his slime. It should be gross, but it’s not. It can’t be when it’s her and him--not really. “You are David.”

“Yeah, David  _ 7-” _

“Yeah, and  _ I’m _ Genny. Just Genny. You chose my name, remember?” She nudges her head against him so that her tuft of blue-white fur scratches his cheek. 

“I know,” David sighs. He kisses her forehead. “I know that. I just wish that...everyone else knew that too. Board, it makes me just... _ ohhh _ .”

_ Anger is a healthy emotion, David 7,  _ IMOGEN supplies.  _ All Stellar Firma employees are even allowed a monthly stipend of anger! Do  _ not  _ exceed the anger stipend.  _

David huffs out a laugh at the sheer simplicity of IMOGEN’s wisdom. As it  _ anything _ could be that simple at Stellar Firma. 

Genny begins giggling too, and her laughter makes her fur tickle David’s nose, which only makes him wheeze and cackle all the more. 

“W-what a disaster,” David snorts.

“I think we might end up going over our monthly allotment,” Genny says, barely able to get out the words in-between her laughter.

David holds her close, smiling into her fur. He speaks softly enough that there’s an outside chance that IMOGEN doesn’t hear it. Even if she did, though, David thinks that he would still say it. 

“You know what? I don’t think that I care.”

“Then let’s take our fill,” Genny says fiercely, tucking herself into David and letting their breaths sync until the tension in their bodies finally--finally-- leaves, and they both fall asleep. 

***

They try their hand at living with their anger for a while. David makes Trexel a silly little graph friend and Genny tries to keep her roughhousing with Zatara from being  _ too  _ rough. Their efforts reap some awards, on occasion. Sometimes, Trexel tries to  _ try  _ to be nice to them, and sometimes Zatara seems like she’s trying to  _ share  _ her excitement with Genny rather than force it upon her. 

Mostly, though, Trexel and Zatara are as cruel as they ever were, and sometimes Hartro is even crueler--to the point of attempted murder, apparently--and, well--

Well, David and Genny are better suited for expediting than sales anyway. Sure, there’s no pod, no slurry, and he and Genny now have even  _ less  _ of an idea of what Standards or IMOGEN’s plans are for them. But here--away from clients and the harsh light of Stellar Firma--there’s room for them to be angry and slimy and large and all of the other things they’ve been holding back for so long. David can exercise and crochet; Genny can run and lope across the room as fast as she can in whatever form she likes, without worrying what clients will think. 

“I don’t know that I even recognize us anymore,” Genny says, examining themselves in the expediting room’s puddle. She ruffles her feathers; she’s a falcon today, her wings large and talons wickedly sharp. David is still David, but he also knows that Genny is taking stock of how large-- _ swole,  _ in IMOGEN’s words--he now is in their reflection. “I think that used to upset us.”

“Well,” David says, doing another sit-down-but-not-quite-sit-down-so-your-bum-does-not-touch-anywhere-and-then-stand-up-again. “I think it still does. But…” He pauses and peers over Genny’s shoulder. His onesie is a bit...tight around his arms, and it reminds him of Bathin in a way that’s pleasant. “I dunno; I also kind of like it?”

_ Emotional maturity detected!  _ IMOGEN says cheerily.  _ Not what I’m used to. Security alerted.  _

David snorts and shoots Genny a grin. 

Down here, in expediting, there is so much room for these new parts of David that when Standards finally bursts in and teaches him a phrase that is perhaps as anathema as severing-- _ subservience protocols _ \--the wave of anger that washes over him only feels natural. It’s  _ violent _ , yes, and still takes up so much space inside of David that he feels like he could burst, but it’s not the nauseating, disorienting whirlwind that it was with Percy and Stefan. No, David has lived with this anger for long enough that there’s a steadiness to it now: one that makes David feel like he can do  _ anything _ . 

Or, that even if he can’t, he wants to try anyway. 

David knows the truth now. He is a  _ freak.  _ An  _ abomination _ . He is a clone with no subservience protocols and a daemon that shifts. The two of them were made large and furious by the things that were done to them. And then someone made the mistake of transferring them to expediting: of putting them somewhere large and empty enough that there was space for all of these things and more to grow inside David without interruption. 

David almost wants to laugh when the walls begin closing in. Too little too late, if you ask him. 

“What a--what a--what a wonderful thing you’ve done there in tearing up the brief, David,” Trexel says, eyeing the walls. “Now, I will draw your attention to the fact that when we don’t submit the brief, the walls start to close in.”

“Oh yeah?” David says, breathing heavily, grinning. Genny twines in-between his legs as something large and furred. He can hear her snarl. 

“And we’ve got no brief to submit, so-” Trexel says, starting to sound panicked. 

“Yeah, but those are the rules, aren’t they? ‘Don’t submit the brief; get crushed by the walls,’” David says, panting as he glances around the slowly shrinking room. “Well, Genny and I are done playing by the rules! If we don’t fit here, then we’ll find  _ somewhere else _ .”

David has struggled and fought and hid for months, panicking, deliberating what to do, stewing in his own uncertainty until it threatened to choke him--but in that moment, it really does feel that simple. This room was once a haven, but now it’s no longer enough. So David will rip the wall apart--will tear his way out of here--and go into the vents, where maybe there is space for all of the things that he is. 

Not space in a literal sense, David supposes, as the vents are rather small. He should probably find a different metaphor. But, given that his only experience with metaphor is with  _ Trexel,  _ he doesn’t know how far he’s going to get there. 

“Oof,” David says, slamming his elbow as he crouches through the vents. “Bit crowded in here, isn’t it?”

“Well, normally vent-trekking is sort of a one-person job, David,” Trexel notes. 

David glances back at Genny. It’s too dark to see her properly, but he can feel how crowded she is in the tight quarters. 

“Do you think something smaller, maybe?” he calls. “Just until we get to the other side?”

“Sure,” Genny says, and then pauses. He can hear claws against the metal of the vents, then another pause, and then, “I...I might not be able to. I think I’m... _ this,  _ now.”

“What…? Oh!” David cries. He twists his neck further to try to see, but the vents are too small for him to really change position. “Oh Board, you’ve settled! What are you; can you tell?”

“Oh,  _ really,  _ David,” Trexel says. “Is that what this is about?”

“What do you mean, ‘is that what this is about?’’ David demands. “My daemon just  _ settled.  _ That’s important.”

“It’s important for people who have  _ rights  _ and  _ social status  _ that are actually affected by what a daemon looks like. Do  _ you  _ have rights? Do  _ you  _ have social status?”

“No, because I’m a bloody  _ clone,  _ and no one gives a toss about clones!” David yells. “In fact, I might be the first clone to  _ ever  _ have a daemon that’s settled _ ,  _ which--you know what, Trexel--would be pretty important! And even if it isn’t,  _ I don’t care!  _ It’s important to  _ me,  _ and I think that’s enough, even if no one else does!”

_ Clone self-esteem detected,  _ IMOGEN interjects.  _ Security  _ not  _ alerted. It is long-overdue!  _

Trexel quiets down for a bit after that. At first, David wonders if he’s fuming--but Trexel has never been one to fume quietly, and he can hear Zatara and Genny chatting softly behind them, and...

And maybe that’s something. Or, maybe it  _ could  _ be something, someday. 

When they finally escape from the vents, they’re dumped into a pile of forgotten complaints, into a filing room whose yawning caverns and gaping vastness are practically incomprehensible to David, who has spent so long in cramped rooms and even more cramped vents. The harsh, fluorescent lights nearly blind him after over a day of crawling through pitch blackness, and he blinks rapidly, swiveling his head back and forth to find Genny, to  _ see her.  _

He  _ does  _ see her, but only as a flash of silver as a large shape slams into him, knocking him into the floor and sending dozens of complaints into the air. 

“ _ Oof, _ ” David gasps out, winded by both the fall and Genny’s tackle. But then he feels a sandy tongue against his cheek and laughs at the familiar feeling of her saliva mixing with his slime.  _ That,  _ at least, hasn’t changed, no matter what her shape. 

Speaking of: “Get off, let me--you have to let me see you.” David is strong enough now that, despite her size, he can shove her off so that she’s sitting in-between his legs, rather than directly on top of him. 

The first thing David notices about her is that she’s  _ huge.  _ With David sitting down like this, they’re easily at eye level. As he studies her, she surveys him back with wide, golden eyes that seem to pierce right through him. Her silver fur shines in the glaring fluorescent lights; her teeth glint in the light too, as sharp as ever. 

But as elegant and dangerous as she looks, she’s also  _ Genny:  _ every bit the weird looking newt that he first met her as, even in this new form. She grins at him with a muzzle that almost seems almost comically wide as the smile splits her face; her large, pointed ears twitch curiously with every sound she hears; and her cheeks puff with the weight and volume of her new fur. 

“You’re beautiful,” David murmurs, running a hand across her cheeks. Her fur is so thick and soft that he can practically stick his hand into it. The tuft of white-blue, of course, is there as always. “What are you…?”

_ Wolves are an old Earth mammal,  _ IMOGEN supplies. David wonders if he’s reading into the pride in her voice.  _ They are pack predators that are cooperative, social, protective, expressive, and known for taking on large animals. Perfect for David! _

“A pack…?” David murmurs, running his hand through Genny’s fur. Even just a week ago, he would have scoffed at the thought. David 7 has  _ always  _ been alone. Even now, this filing room--this strange, empty space--is devoid of people too. 

And yet. Here he is, with Trexel and Zatara beside him, and Enola only a few miles behind them. In Trexel’s own words, they’re all a bit rubbish, but...they  _ are _ here. IMOGEN is here too, whatever her motives. 

Even though they’ve long-since been recycled, David also can’t help but wonder at the programming of Davids 1-6 that lives inside him. He thinks of the clones like Percy who came before him and tried their hand at being as large as he is now--even if they failed--and wonders if those things count as  _ pack  _ too. 

_ And, obviously,  _ David says, giggling as Genny begins licking his face with a wet, sandpaper tongue.  _ I have Genny.  _

As the two of them pull themselves up to face whatever’s next, David thinks that even if this isn’t a pack yet--even if David doesn’t yet know how to protect or express himself or take on something larger than him--maybe someday, there will be room for those things to grow. 


End file.
